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Mukesh Aggarwal created a free channel on an app that helps Bay Area residents find available coronavirus vaccine appointments out of his own frustration and struggle to find an appointment for his parents.

He said it was difficult to track all the various sites run by a myriad of government agencies, pharmacies and health providers for an appointment, especially when they are snapped up so quickly.

And with vaccine eligibility opening up to Californians 50 and older on Thursday and everyone 16 and older on April 15, demand is expected to soar. Officials are saying it could take weeks for supply to catch up.

If Im having a hard time, people who are not tech savvy will have an even harder time, said Aggarwal, a software engineer at Intuit and a Fremont resident.

He created the Marut Bot app that scans websites to find available appointments hourly at most public and private providers, except Kaiser. The app then alerts people in the BayAreaVaccineNotification channel on the Telegram chat app.

A screenshot of the BayAreaVaccineNotification channel on the Telegram chat app.

The channel had about 200 people a month ago. As of Wednesday, there were more than 10,300 subscribers.

The app scrapes more than 100 vaccine sites for appointments within driving distance in the Bay Area. People dont even know that theres so many providers around them, Aggarwal said.

Many Bay Area residents have driven far distances or lined up at vaccination sites at 2 a.m. to search for available appointments, he said.

Mukesh Aggarwal, a software engineer from Fremont, created a free channel on an app that helps Bay Area residents find available coronavirus vaccine appointments.

Aggarwal said he was working on partnering with other developers to expand their reach, possibly outside the Bay Area. Demand seems high, given the frustrations expressed by thousands in the Facebook group Bay Area Vaccine Hunters, who post about their attempts to snare appointments.

It will be unrealistic to expect that people will be checking [provider websites] frequently, said Aggarwal, who is a member of the group.

Providers should find a way to push the information to them, he said.

Aggarwal said he does not expect anything in return for his efforts, but wants people to pay it forward and help at least one underpriveleged or non-tech-savvy person get a vaccine appointment.

Heres how to sign up for the BayAreaVaccineNotification channel if you have an iPhone or Android (more detailed instructions can be found here):

Install the Telegram app on your phone.

Sign up for an account by entering your phone number and first and last name.

On your phones browser, go to https://t.me/bayareavaccinenotification or click on that link. You may also search for Bayareavaccinenotification in the search bar.

Click view in Telegram, which will take you back to the app and click join.

If you need help booking an appointment or have questions about the process, you can join the Bay Area Vaccine Hunters Facebook group, where users share tips.

Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jesssmflores

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This app can help you find Bay Area COVID vaccine appointments in real time. Heres how it works - San Francisco Chronicle